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It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#651

Post by itake »

actionfromafar wrote: post #535
itake wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's upgrade cycle (for me) has moved from 4 years to ~6 years. Maybe upgrading the RAM or HD could be useful, but wear and tear on all components is a bigger concern for me than just one. My laptop is a critical part of my life. I can't risk being out of service for a week while parts arrive. Its like buying a car... you can repair and maintain it to 200k miles, but the reliability will go down as more things bre…

Off topic but I think many models of cars, when properly maintained , have very predictable and good reliability.

You are probably correct, but... there is still higher risk of unplanned or extended service time as the car ages.

For example, my 2018 Honda fit has a part recall. The service center needs the car the entire day and the tank to be less than 25%. This isn't something new cars would have to deal with.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#652

Post by itake »

dsr_ wrote: post #532
itake wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same category as dbg31415. I've owned mbps since 2007. Never had any serious issues with them. I kept them for about 4 years each, before upgrading. My 2021 m1 has at least another year left in it. Certainly if you're in the 0.01% of Apple purchasers that just have a terrible experience (broken device, out of warranty, etc) and one of your largest purchases doesn't work the way you want it, then that is te…

The 0.01% number is a ridiculous exaggeration. In a roughly 50 person company with refresh every 3 years, we send a macbook back for repair/replacement roughly three times a year. I would estimate that as a 2% hardware problem rate, 200x higher than what you quote. 2% is satisfactory for corporate use, by the way.

Work computers have different usage profiles than personal computers. Employees move their laptop to and from home 5x per week, into offices, use them on trains, buses, etc. Work laptops are used 40+ hours per week. Whereas personal devices are closer to 5-20 hours.

Employees also take worse care of work laptops than their personal machines.

Even in the extremely rare case my device has issues. I can take the device to an apple store in any city I am in and they will hand me a loaner laptop while a professional performs the repair.

If your Framework laptop dies, you have to debug the problem yourself, wait for parts to arrive, and pray that the part you ordered is the only part you need.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#653

Post by cromka »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #431
cromka wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You have a buggy program. As in memory leak? No. > Zswap has been available for quite a while. Zsawp is not Zram, which is a distant relative of the macOS on-the-fly compression I was talking about. Zram is buggy and still advised against regular use ( https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1i3mdrw/comment... , https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-... ). Zsawp itself is enabled by defaul…

zswap works well in my experience. Don't need both. Combined with systemd-oomd I haven't had a swapping or memory issue in many years. 16gb here with VMs and lots going on. This doc clears some things up: https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-...

> Combined with systemd-oomd

That's my whole point: on Linux a process gets killed to prevent a system lock up if you're about to run out of memory or swap. That never happens on macOS, as long as you have some SSD left, period.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#654

Post by tetsgima »

Since apple introduced M1 i dont see any point in buying a windows laptop especially if you need a laptop as your main pc

A new macbook pro can get expensive, but its a thing that will last you for 5 years at least (people still use their M1 with touchbars and have no problem in doing so) meanwhile im not even sure a new windows laptop will survive 2 years without getting outdated or broken

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#655

Post by hparadiz »

pjmlp wrote: post #641
michaelt wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT departments can mandate tools like ninjaone and kolide, which let them run queries across the fleet of devices, and (as I understand it) basically gives them root-level remote code execution. The corporate VPN (or equivalent) can then perform 'posture checking' requiring that the tools be installed and working before connecting to the corporate network. Obviously, 99% of Linux users have root on their device so no…

Failing compliance in many jobs isn't a simple "ooops, sorry".

It's a nudge. Like "update your OS". You could also just be logging into a machine after a few weeks away. The software tells you what you need to update before letting you in.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#656

Post by fsflover »

pepperoni_pizza wrote: post #505
cardanome wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is all true but even as a hardcore Linux and Thinkpad user, I have to admit it is a hard sell when no one can offer the quality of Apple. Apple is the only hardware company where you can buy a product and it is good hardware wise. Sure other companies have flagship offerings but with apple you get a really good base model. And that is where it breaks down for me. Pay 20% more for freedom? Yes, absolutely. But pa…

This is a common dilemma. Apple's phones and laptop are 100 % the best in the market, but Apple is a terrible evil company - the walled garden stuff, the "you don't really own your device" stuff, the normalization of enshittification (removing headphone jack, nonreplaceable glued batteries, not giving charger with $1000 laptop, ...) that other manufacturers followed, the gold statue Cook gave Trump as a bribe. But no…

The real alternative is GNU/Linux phones.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#657

Post by regexorcist »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #140
benoau wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every generation of Mac has its own requirements that Asahi has to support through a painstaking process of reverse-engineering, so it lags behind quite a bit. Realistically it will probably be 2030 before you can use it on any current-generation Mac.

It's irritating to see it constantly recommended as a real option.

It is a real option, in fact the only option for many who can't tolerate macOS, to use these devices.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#658

Post by isityettime »

skydhash wrote: post #529
saidnooneever wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i am not sure why btw but i read some articles on here about software not being idle on background properly a lot of times (fancy terminals etc.). for me tho 'it just happens' because im unsure how to measure it precisely.. maybe my linux had a big or wrong setup u know, but it was running very lean. Freebsd runs about as lean tho. cannot be bothered ofc to go back and measure it is some hp-elitebook withh a ryzen an…

I run openbsd on an old latitude and that tracks. I mostly have only application active at a time. The others are idling. I believe on Linux, especially with DE, there’s always some polling or scanning going on.

That also means that any desktop Linux user who goes to play on OpenBSD or FreeBSD and runs a full-fat desktop environment that they like will probably discover similar battery life to what they're used to.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#659

Post by trouve_search »

pdimitar wrote: post #274
trouve_search wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using an asus zenbook 14 OLED with linux. Compatibility is great. The screen blows apple out completely. It's clearly, obviously better. The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple. The keyboard feels better to type on, the trackpad is slightly worse, but not enough to annoy me. The new Pop OS cosmic is a very fun OS concept for laptops with the autotiling workspaces as a fundamental primitive.

Is the fan turning on often? Is it very loud? From my research on Macbook alternatives only the Zenbooks looked like almost-an-even-match to me. Curious what's your experience with day-to-day fan noise and heat.

It hasn't been so bad for me to notice. Compiling rust you'll hear the fan, but you'll also hear it in a MBP.

The MBP will compile faster however.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#660

Post by trouve_search »

kvuj wrote: post #272
trouve_search wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using an asus zenbook 14 OLED with linux. Compatibility is great. The screen blows apple out completely. It's clearly, obviously better. The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple. The keyboard feels better to type on, the trackpad is slightly worse, but not enough to annoy me. The new Pop OS cosmic is a very fun OS concept for laptops with the autotiling workspaces as a fundamental primitive.

From a quick search online, the max brightness of your laptop is 400 nits SDR and 500 HDR. My M5 MacBook Pro is 1000 and 1500 nits. Screen brightness is not something I will compromise on after having a taste of greatness. I personally wouldn't mind spending 30-40% more for a Linux laptop with similar qualities + repairability. But I will not settle for something much more expensive and worst in some aspects. There a…

Not sure if the M5 is that massively different but I have a M2 max laptop and the screen is noticeably brighter on the Asus.
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